Tony Thompson, a propagandist at the Observer
Gun crime is a label police propagandists use to make a false distinction
between black and white firearms violence.Winston Smith

On Boxing Day 2003, David Bieber shot dead Ian Blakehurst, a traffic
cop, in east Leeds, northern England. Bieber is, Blakehurst was, white.
On December 2 2004, Bieber began a life sentence for Blakehurst’s
murder. Was his murder a gun crime?

The Observer crime correspondent, Tony Thompson, is a police propagandist.
A look at Thompson’s articles should tell us what gun crime is.

In May 2003, in a “special investigation”, Thompson tells
readers about a feature of gun crime: “the ethnic connection”.
Ethnicity is central to what police say gun crime is. Jamaicans, specifically,
“have few qualms about shooting police officers” (1). More
than any other ethnic group, they have had a “far greater …impact”
on UK organised crime.

What makes Jamaicans killers? Thompson hints at two sides to the Jamaican
personality which makes him likely to kill (2). First, “having
been brought up in a society where violent death [is] commonplace”,
he kills easily. Second, his love of guns makes him willing to use them
against anyone, including the police (3).

Along with ethnicity and violence, the trade in crack-cocaine is another
feature of gun crime. Crack epidemics grip British inner city black
communities. Thompson says, “Brixton has long held the reputation
for being the drugs capital of London” (5).

Thompson makes a deliberate, albeit false, link between crack-cocaine
and black people. This chimes well with police propaganda. Since the
1980s, the Metropolitan police force has tried to fool the public into
believing crack-cocaine, unlike powered cocaine, is a black drug.

What’s more, the danger to society from crack-cocaine is far
greater than for any other drugs such as heroin and ecstasy. This false
distinction underpins uneven police resource, Operation Trident - a
squad of armed officers, aimed at containing the black threat.

The recognition of police need to contain the so-called black threat
is central to any understanding of what gun crime is. It has an “ethnic
connection”, Jamaicans and their British-born offspring are to
blame for “the completely unprecedented … new era of gun
violence” in Britain (2).

Thompson says, “Street crack dealers are a major problem, chiefly
because of the violence associated with them” (6). Therefore police
“total onslaught” against black communities is justified
because it is from them threats to society come.

Leaving aside its clear fallacy, how Thompson describes gun crime still
has it uses. By comparing his description with the facts of the Bieber
case, it is possible to judge whether Blakehurst’s murder is a
gun crime.

Gun crime’s “ethnic connection” features in Blakehurst’s
murder. He was killed by a foreigner, Bieber is an American citizen.
He arrived in Britain on a false passport on March 27 1997 (7). He was
only able to stay in the country because he bigamously married a British
citizen.

The trade in illegal drugs, linked to violence, is another feature
of Blakehurst’s murder and gun crime. Bieber supplied anabolic
steroid to body builders illegally. Like crack-cocaine, anabolic steroids
make bodybuilders aggressive. They are likely to commit violent acts.
The Guardian says: “A relatively high number of bodybuilders have
been involved in murders” (7).

Bieber’s love of gun is in line with Thompson’s description
of the black psyche. When police arrested Bieber he was found to have
a gun and 2,000 rounds (8). Later police discovered he also had equipment
and parts to make bullets.

The “brutality, cold-bloodedness” Bieber showed Blakehurst
when he shot him matches the ruthlessness Thompson attributes to black
gunmen. Does the similarity end there? In other words, is Bieber killing
of Blakehurst a gun crime?

A glance at the Observer’s reports of the murder would suggest
it was not. Gun crime is a black phenomenon. Bieber is not black, neither
British-born nor Jamaican. Even if he were black, he was not involved
in the illegal supply of crack-cocaine. Nor did he murder Blakehurst
in a black community such as Brixton, Harlesden or Brent. Nor is his
violence pathological.

Although Bieber was said to have shown “‘no remorse or
understanding of the brutality’ of his crime” (9), Thompson’s
description of black gunmen would seem to suggest Bieber’s violent
tendency is, unlike British-born blacks’, the result of the society
in which he was brought up.

Thompson’s suggestion that society is to blame for making its
citizens violent is truer for Bieber than it is British-born blacks.
America is a violent society. Each year, gun violence claims almost
30,000 American lives (10). A further 100,000 are gunshot victims. In
2004, no fewer than 54 police officers died as a result of gunfire (11).
By contrast fewer than 50 British Bobbies have been killed in the last
twenty-five years (12).

Since Britain is less violent than Jamaica, the fact that Thompson
says British-born blacks are “ruthless” would suggests he
is saying biology rather than upbringing makes blacks more likely to
kill than whites. For example, he says even British-born Jamaican offspring
“have proved themselves to be capable of just as much violence”
as their parents. This reinforces his point about Jamaicans being natural-born
killers. Although their offspring are British-born, they match their
parents “in brutality, cold-bloodedness” (13).

Such racist nonsense would be laughable were it not the basis of policing
in Britain: Operation Trident, an anti-black police squad.